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Understandably bitter Bill: Bill Price at the Daily News is an angry Mets fan, and right now, that's a pretty easy thing to be. But while I normally enjoy the emotional timbre of Price's work, his post on Wednesday displays some egregiously flawed logic.

Price suggests that the Mets consider trading prospects for Major League talent. To be more specific, Price writes, "I say trade every prospect they have in order to get help. ... It's clear holding onto anyone with an eye to the future is a huge mistake."

Why? Well, Price argues, it's because of his big list of Mets prospects he's felt jilted by, I think. It's actually a little unclear. Price's roster of prospects who haven't panned out includes Scott Kazmir, Preston Wilson, Jay Payton, Kevin Tapani, A.J. Burnett, Octavio Dotel and, amazingly, Jason Bay. Granted, it's not likely that any of those guys will make the Hall of Fame, but those are some good Major League players to have under contract for the primes of their careers.

Plus, just because a bunch of former prospects haven't panned out doesn't mean all the Mets' current prospects won't. And among the former Mets prospects that Price forgot to include are David Wright and Jose Reyes.

Look: There are times to trade prospects for players in their primes, specifically times when you can get a really good deal for a player in his prime. But to say the Mets should trade all their current prospects just because some of their past prospects have failed doesn't make any sense at all. There's a reason they're called "prospects" and not "Major Leaguers," after all. You have to expect that many of them won't work out.

Some of them will, though, and if it doesn't look like your team has a realistic shot of winning anything, I'm not sure I see the logic in parting with even one of them.

J.J. Hardy is not interested in your first offering: During Monday's game, Gary Cohen mentioned that Brewers shortstop J.J. Hardy swung at only 6.4 percent of the first pitches in his plate appearances, by far the lowest in the league. I can't find this complete data online without compiling it myself (or ruining an intern's summer), but it's certainly interesting. The approach doesn't appear to be helping Hardy that much this year -- he'd been struggling mightily until a couple of weeks ago -- but I'd love to see his numbers on those 6.4 percent of pitches he does swing at. It seems like once Hardy established that he never swings at the first pitch, pitchers would almost always start him with a first-pitch fastball over the plate, at which point he could pick his spots and jump on it.

Naturally, every time I think, "Oh, that would be interesting to see," someone has already done it -- usually on Fangraphs or The Hardball Times. In this case, it's the latter. Josh Kalk did a study using 2008 pitchFX data on first-pitch fastballs. Turns out that though Hardy was nearly as patient with the first pitch last year, he hit .290 with a .500 slugging (in a predictably small sample) on first-pitch fastballs in 2008, only slightly higher than his season averages. So maybe the approach isn't worth much. Or maybe Hardy smacked the crap out of the ball every time he did swing and just happened to line out a bunch of times. So it goes.

The real winner here is the Internet. I know I shouldn't be shocked by this anymore, but it took me 10 seconds on Google to find an analysis that was even better than what I was initially looking for. The only real surprise is that I couldn't find any sortable list of the 2009 data, and probably by the time this column is published, that will exist, too.

When Dave Chappelle fantasized about the Internet as a place you could visit, he imagined a sleazy shopping mall. I wonder if it's not more like the Grand Canyon: Rife with tourist traps and overcrowded, but nonetheless terrifying and spectacular.

Sock Alexis: There have been a lot of recent rumblings about the Mets' pursuit of Alex Alexis Rios. It's an interesting move in that Rios would theoretically only cost money, at least according to the rumor. But lest we forget, money is worth something, and Rios is due to earn an absolute ton of it over the next five years. He's not a terrible player and it's not my money, so I understand the temptation to say sure, bring him in. But since Rios' stats are trending downward and the Mets still have finite resources, I'm just not sure he'd be the best pickup -- even if it's only for cash.

It could work out. After all, Rios is still only 28 and could theoretically return to the All-Star form he showed in 2006 and 2007 that earned him his huge deal. On the other hand, there's an equally good chance that three years from now, Mets fans could be scratching their heads and wondering why they were so eager to bail out J.P. Ricciardi by taking on a player with an albatross of a contract and red flags on the back of his baseball card.

Meanwhile, toiling in Triple-A for the Rockies is longtime object of Flushing Fussing affection Matt Murton. Murton got off to a decent start with the Rockies this year, but his .771 OPS wasn't enough to keep a spot in their crowded outfield, so he's been banished to Colorado Springs, where he's posting a modest .377/.437/.629 line. I have no idea what it would take to get Murton, but since he's no longer a prospect and clearly pretty far down the Rockies' depth chart, I can't imagine it would be much.

Murton is the type of guy I always harp on in these columns because I can't understand why he hasn't had more opportunities to play. In 945 Major League at-bats, he actually has a slightly higher career OPS than Rios does, but hasn't seen any prolonged action since 2007. He's only 27 and so theoretically should just be hitting his prime; it'd be awesome to see the Mets cash in on a guy like him for once. I don't think it'll happen, but if the Mets are looking to try to salvage the season without giving up much, Murton might be a good fit.

For what it's worth, I've been going back and forth on how the redheaded Murton stands in Eric Cartman's classification system with Rockiescast host, South Park enthusiast and self-proclaimed Daywalker Ted Burke. We've since checked the numbers, and based on his career day/night splits, it appears Murton is a full-fledged Ginger Kid. So that's something to consider.